Up early, breakfast, no air, window open, thank God we are on the quiet side of the hotel. It’s a beautiful sunrise as we look down at the deserted streets, which won’t stay that way for long. Today we are visiting the Astra open-air ethnographic museum, the largest museum of it’s type in Europe.
On the bus at 8:30, we’re at the museum before 9 and they open up early just for us, which is totally cool because we have the whole huge complex all to ourselves. It’s a gorgeous day, actually a little cool (thankfully) and a beautiful walk around a little lake that is surrounded by different traditional structures collected from all over Romania. Acres and acres of land are dotted with little cottages, workshops and other buildings built and used by Romanians from across the country. There are windmills and winery sheds, cottages for blacksmiths, oil presses, you name the type of industry – and they have a cottage or structure for it. Fascinating, and a lovely walk through the forest on a beautiful morning. There is a similar museum in Bucharest that we are now very keen to visit when we return!
As we wander through the woods and the cottages, they look very familiar to me. Then it dawns on me that the pottery houses I made are exactly like these at the museum. I have made Romanian houses without knowing I was making Romanian houses! How fun is that? So, now I’m on a mission – any cool Romanian house I see, I’m taking pictures so I can recreate it in pottery when I return. I’m on it!
After the walk, we load into the bus once again, on our way to Alba Carolina, a star-shaped fortress that is the largest citadel in Romania. The fortress is located in Alba Iulia, one of the important centers for the Transylvanian ethnic group. Predominately always Romanian, as they were the first to settle the area, the Romans conquered it and gave them the name of Dacia over 2,000 years ago. After the Romans, Michael the Brave tried to unify the provinces for the 1st time from here in 1595, ruling over the unified counties for about 3 years, crowning himself the Prince of Transylvania, before being captured and killed.
The citadel itself was built in the late 1700’s by the Hapsburgs (everybody invaded this country!) and has become an important part of Romanian state history. Because it is located in the area considered to be the birthplace of Romania, the citadel has been the site of historic events, such as the signing of the Declaration of Unification of Transylvania and Romania on 12/1/1918. To commemorate the event, a church was built on the site of the original stone church Michael the Brave built in 1597. The new church was finished in time for the coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie in 1922.
The fortress is massive, with incredible moats (now dry with restaurants and play grounds contained within) and tons of interesting architecture and features. It’s a little bit touristic, with little beer garden snack bars nestled here and there, but then again, what else would you use this for now. We tour all through the new church, which is beautiful and clean looking, designed in yellow and white on the outside, typical Orthodox Romanian on the inside with the iconostasis and all the icons, empty nave floor and frescoes (by the end of this tour, we’ll be able to recite by heart exactly how the Orthodox worship). Then we wander around the grounds, looking at buildings and statues (of course there’s one of Michael the Brave) – and tons of great iron artwork, like the “freedom” bell, which is sort like the liberty bell, and random “people” scenes from two men talking to each to soldiers standing at attention to women sitting on benches. It’s really quite a smart and well done way to exhibit what times were like in the 1700’s.
But probably the best story of the entire day is how Ceaucescu wanted to make a grand avenue in Alba Iulia to showcase the Coronation Church and the Catholic church at the other end of the city stand, but there was an apartment building in the way. So, he had engineers come up with a plan to split the apartment building into two and move them apart – 55 meters apart – to open up the view! Allegedly all this happened without evicting any of the residents, and supposedly, as the propaganda goes, people came out on their balconies with beer or coffee to watch their building move right under their feet. And, again allegedly, a woman put a glass of water out on the ledge of the balcony during the move and it didn’t spill a drop. Regardless of the urban legends, just moving the buildings like that was quite a feat in and of itself!
We end our tour at the opposite end of the fortress at the Horea, Closca and Crisan obelisk, built to commemorate the battle of Custozza in 1866. It’s a beautiful monument, perched at the end of the citadel, perched high above the valleys below the fortress hills. We are set free upon the town here, with most people heading back into the urban city for lunch at some cafes. We have spied a little place right outside the fortress walls called Pub 13 Restaurant Medieval, which has some pretty decent reviews. And bonus! It’s not just outside the fortress walls, the restaurant is actually INSIDE the fortress walls – oh, we can’t resist this! Touristy or not – we’re in – literally "in”side the walls.
Honestly? It was a great decision. Not only was the atmosphere great, the food was really good too – and not totally over priced (it is SO cheap to eat here – like crazy cheap – if we spend more than $25 for a meal including a couple of beverages, we’ve overspent!). We love the space in here, centered around the huge brick support of the walls with those big black sturdy chairs around massive tables that look like Knights of the Round table are going to come in and sit around any minute. There are swords and shields and all sorts of weaponry hanging around. It’s really just perfect. The menu looks good too, but we decide we just want to share a traditional “snack” of charcuterie and cheese which is huge, served in an iron serving stand, and includes cracklings (actually fried pig fat, almost back bacon), salami, meats, cheeses, pickles and pig’s ears! Yep, those chewy little morsels that I let Ed eat all by himself! Ok, so, I definitely had one – I had to – but one was my limit.
After lunch we still had a lot of time to kill, so we sat at one of the touristy snack places and had beer and wine and listened to a kid make obnoxiously loud noises playing a game. Once he left, all was well, and it was peaceful sitting there staring out at the statue of Michael the Brave.
After only a couple days on the tour, we’ve figured out how to manage being in a group of 42 people. We are either in the very front, or the very back, that way you can get pictures without any one in them. Of course, there is always that one guy – actually on this trip – 2 guys – who are the photo bombers! One is constantly videoing with a commentary in another language – and getting in the way, the other is just in the way, he’s just always THERE – so you have to navigate around him. But, today, being that the entire rest of the bus is in the urban city and we are still in the citadel, we have the place to ourselves as we walk back to the bus, snapping pictures of the aforementioned cool statues, the huge, and I mean huge, wheel apparatus that opens and shuts the drawbridge gates and the actual gates themselves – all without anyone around. Ah, paradise!
So, it’s back to the bus we go and off to our next site – the Calnic fortified church.
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